One of my favorite poems to read to my directees is also a poem that I read to myself quite regularly. I need the reminder that while I may make plans and partner with God to pursue honorable and good ends, there is more at work than I realize. That hope can energize me, but it need not push me toward frenetic activity or hardened expectation. It is a reminder that we are all in process, and that process may indeed be slow. And that is a good thing.
Patient Trust by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We would like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet, it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability –
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually – let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time,
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming in you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.